The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon

Monday, 26 January 2009

First of all, I had a very satisfying day at the key board. Root of Evil keeps growing but I think tomorrow or the next day and the 1st draft will be finished.

Secondly - my birthday came and went and I was having a wee bit of a crisis. I have been a little frustrated with rejections of late and after a disheartening Friday I gave myself a slap in the face and told myself to smarten up.

A wonderful thing spawned from my birthday. In the fall we added the wonderful Willow to our family. On Sunday my daughter gave me her big birthday secret that wasn't finished in time to share with me on my actual birthday.

My daughter found a pattern on-line and with some help from her mom cut out the material and sewed it together.

It's amazing. It sits. It stands and it lies down. It has four points of articulation and it is entirely handmade. It will live with me in the basement office.

The weather has been a roller-coaster. Mostly we've been in the bitter grip of Arctic air but for a short, miraculous pair of days it was merely freezing. Here are some shots of our river - normally this time of the year the flow is far less frozen.

The next thing I have truly mixed feelings about. This morning I heard that my former employer - the one that canned me after 16 years without cause - filed for bankruptcy protection along with its US parent. I am worried about the friends I have who still work there and the uncertainty of their futures but I predicted this three years ago and my timeline was pretty much spot on. There's the satisfaction of "I told you so" but there's also a lot of folks not sleeping well tonight that deserved better governance of their company. Oh, did I mention that the top five executives of the company took bonuses well in excess of one million dollars only a week before declaring bankruptcy. Oh, there's bankruptcy all right and not all of it is fiscal.

The last thing I'll share is one of those moment you have when inspiration hits you from out of the blue. I was washing the dishes a little while ago and my mind drifted to The Witch. The Witch has been shelved for a while - fermenting, I guess - and as I was scrubbing something stubborn off a pan, a huge portion of the story gelled in my mind. I now have a very good idea how to proceed with The Witch.